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Coroner: Use of helmet would have saved rider

A helmet would have saved the life of a motorcyclist who died in a traffic accident near Mesa Mall on Friday, the Mesa County Coroner’s Office said.

Ellis Marvin Jensen, 47, of Riverdale, Utah, suffered multiple injuries in what was ruled an accident. Jensen’s autopsy was performed Saturday.

“The forensic pathologist who performed the (death) examination said the injuries would not have been life threatening had Mr. Jensen been wearing an approved motorcycle helmet,” the coroner’s office said in a news release.

Jensen, who was riding a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle, was pulling out of the parking lot of Mesa Mall, turning onto 24 1/2 Road, when he was struck by a Chevrolet pickup southbound on 24 1/2 Road around 11 a.m. A witness told The Daily Sentinel the pickup appeared to lurch toward the median in the road, near the mall’s exit, around the time of the accident.

Police on Friday were looking to speak with two other motorcycle riders thought to have been near the scene, in addition to the driver of a brown sedan seen leaving the parking lot of Carmike Cinemas, 590 24 1/2 Road.

The coroner’s office Saturday also said 56-year-old Gateway resident Mark Miller, whose all-terrain vehicle was struck Friday by a car on Colorado Highway 141, died of multiple injuries in an accident. Miller was crossing the roadway on his John Deere Gator around 8 a.m. and was tending to livestock on a property across from his home when he was struck by a northbound vehicle on the highway.